


Delicate Work

by Sketched



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: this is just some self-indulgent good feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-10 02:05:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12901641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sketched/pseuds/Sketched
Summary: Who is taking care of Duncan back in DC?





	Delicate Work

               Dogmeat IV flopped down at the side of his master and yawned. The sunset reflected in his clouding eyes and it was obvious that the dog wasn’t very far from joining his predecessors in the graves behind the southern fence. A grenade had made him three-legged and half-deaf the year before, though he seemed to have been refusing to go ever since then, not that anyone was complaining.

Marred fingers reached down and rubbed circles into the top of his skull. His tail thumped against dusty wood and his master leaned over to get behind his ears, knowing that the dog more than deserved it.

“You’re a good boy.” He croaked, thinking of all the things the dog had survived prior to the grenade.

Something hit the ground to his left and he leaped to his feet, the reflexes of years prior not lost to him. He reached for the gun across his back and panicked when he found nothing, but Dogmeat had already wobbled over to pick up the baseball and turned to him with his tail still in motion. He stood there for a moment as reality jumped back at him.

The tension in his shoulders released and he crouched to receive the slobber-coated projectile. He turned to the direction it came from to see the kid who had run after it almost frozen.

“S-sorry mister Charon!” She said. Her feet stayed planted on the sand, as if he’d eat her if she touched his porch with so much as a pinky toe.

He wiped the ball off on his shirt and tossed it to her lightly without a word. His hand shook, and she almost missed the catch.

As she ran away he ducked into his home with a now-excited Dogmeat that plowed by him to greet Duncan, who sat on the floor with a few blocks from the basket next to the recliner. The dog curled up around him and Duncan laughed as Charon turned on the hot plate to warm some water for tea.

Charon had never pictured himself as a babysitter. It was easy when Duncan was sick, as all he required was bedside care that was routine. His cure had come a month earlier, and now all the markings of an actual child had returned with force.

If you asked him, it had been a mistake to have taught the boy how to walk.

His guns were locked up tightly alongside all the other miscellaneous weaponry that cluttered the house beforehand, and the only bit of protection he had was a 10mm holstered securely to his left thigh and a combat knife in his right boot.

Though, lately the need for weapons was heavily decreased. Big Town had gotten much more secure with the growing up of the kids in Little Lamplight and MacCready being an absolute tyrant about wall-building. A couple of snipers patrolled the walls on catwalks almost 24/7, and few people messed with the place once a few raider groups fell in heaps beyond the wall. Not only that, but Charon’s reputation alongside the fabled Vault Dweller added to the reasons to avoid the place. Though, the memory of their heroism faded into legend with every passing year.

MacCready, however, was due to return any day at that point. It had been almost a year since he left the boy with Charon and the dog permanently, and two since Lucy’s fate triggered most of the protection present.

The inattentive guards that were responsible never did return to their posts after the beating Robert had given them. Charon remembered pulling him off and dragging him away as he screamed insults that rivaled a jetted-out raider.

He glanced at Duncan, who had now fallen asleep in Dogmeat’s fur, as he poured scalding water into a cup with a crude teabag.

As it seeped, he strode over and gently transferred the boy to his bed as the dog padded along to continue naptime with his obvious favorite. Part of him found the delicate work foreign, but soon enough he would have sand in his teeth and the smell of gunpowder burned into his sinuses on a hunt with the boy's father.


End file.
